Lijiang Cruises

About Lijiang

Lijiang is a prefecture in China’s northwest Yunnan Province. Its Old Town area was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

Visitors can stop in Yuhu village for a tour of the home and workshop of renowned botanist Dr. Joseph Rock, who came to the area in the early 1920s to study the region’s plants (camellias and rhododendron are thought to have originated here) and ended up making a comprehensive 27-year study of the area’s ethnic Naxi minority. The house provides a snapshot of the recent past, plus there are spectacular views of the nearby lake and mountains.

Lijiang’s 800-year-old Dayan Town area was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997. It features traditional Naxi adobe houses, the Ancient Wall Gate and the Three Pagodas. Walk around the town’s narrow streets, lanes and picturesque canals and bridges. See the Baisha Fresco and Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, and visit Longquan Village, the traditional Naxi home. The dramatic layered sandstone peaks that surround the town are thought to have mystical properties.